


Monsoon

by cathouse_mary



Category: Team Fortress 2, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Stealth Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 17:47:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5674963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathouse_mary/pseuds/cathouse_mary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Waiting for the rains to break the heat in the badlands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monsoon

There's a time of year when the heat is so intense that it cooks the roadkill. Becky's seen buzzards fall dead out of the sky in her time here, and as of this morning every vehicle parked on the blacktop is sitting on roasting tires. It's hot enough that she swapped her shoes for a pair of wafflestomper boots simply because the ground is too hot for those thin soles. 

There's a dark line of clouds to the northwest, but at this point it's just a tease. There's no breeze, nothing but the heat and the scent of baking rock, dirt, and blacktop. RED and BLU are feeling it, with the day's battle playing out in slow motion. Even the Scouts are moving at half speed. The Medics are enforcing water breaks, but everyone's wilting. Even Administrator has bunkered down with the air conditioning and something in a tall frosted glass with an umbrella sticking out of it. 

All Becky Pauling wants is the scent of rain, the puff of cool air on the back of her neck. Hell, it doesn't even have to go all the way; just drop the temperature into the nice, reasonable nineties. Her transistor radio hangs from a hook by its wrist strap on the porch of the office/explosives shed and emits a blast of promising static followed by the signal from the KTNV relay station.

"Another roaster, friends and neighbors," Cecil announces. "It's 127 degrees, making this the tenth record breaking day in a row. But relief is on the way, with the tropical uprising meeting with a major cold front pushing south, and you know what that means."

"It sounds like my last date. It means you're a tease, Cecil." Now she's talking to the radio. Her brains have baked. "Don't promise what you can't deliver."

She can't budge out of the cheap lawn chair, her back and the roots of her hair soaked with sweat as she eyes the line of clouds. They're not any closer. At least it's cooler on the porch than it is in the office shack. The rains have to come sometime. Honestly, she'd even be happy if they showed up with a windstorm or hail. Anything to feel cool again.

"Man. Fuck this. Even Miss P's flat." The Brooklyn accent is loud and clear.

"Hearin' ya, BLU. I'm hearin' ya," Boston replies. "Man. You know what would be so good right now? An Italian ice."

"Aw, yeah. Cherry and lemon for me!"

"Watermelon strawberry, that's where it's at."

"Go out to Asbury Park and we'd all stay with my great uncle just a block from the beach-"

"Ma would put us all in the car, and we'd take the ferry to P-town-"

"Scouts! Less talking, more shooting!" 

"Was that your Heavy or mine, BLU?"

"No idea. Better start shooting, though."

For a few minutes the rate of fire ratchets up.

"At least respawn's air conditioned."

"Bitch, bitch, bitch! Did American troops bitch at Guadalcanal or the Marne?"

"Yeah, you hammerhead."

Becky opens her eyes again as the bitch session escalates, thinking longingly of having a jump in the lake. She'd shovel the every driveway on the block back in Milwaukee with a glad heart, because it would be cold! The front is a little closer, the clouds boiling up into that flat-topped anvil cloud that promises a "real Jeezer" as her Uncle Steve calls them. Maybe it's her imagination, but just for a moment she feels a curl of cooler air eddying on her bare legs.

Oh, if only.

Eyes closing again, she drowses and half plans a heist of some air conditioning units. The guys are half-heartedly shooting at each other and whole-heartedly complaining about everything under the too hot sun when it comes.

Becky sits up, nostrils flaring. She can smell it. Petrichor. The dry earth and hot rock, the asphalt and concrete as the rain starts to fall in the distance. She can't even see it, but she can smell it. For the first time in days the fort's banners stir in a breeze. Oh, oh, please-

There's at hitch in the bitchfest and Becky really hopes she didn't say that out loud because guys and stuff. She knows how often they send their sheets to the laundry. There it is again. Stronger, cooler, and closer as she peels herself out of the lawn chair and looks to the northwest. The anvils are huge, with boiling darkness below, flashes of greenish white light flicker within. The bitching is now shooting and what appears to be sincere mayhem. She must have missed a real zinger. Slowly the edge of the anvil creeps over the sun.

"Fuck you, you fucking fuck!"

"Arschgesicht! Mach es dir selber!"

When the rockets and grenades start flying, it really drives the score up. 

"Over here, sawbones!"

"I am fully charged!"

"Doktor - now!"

The breeze is steady and cool, growing strong enough to be called wind. Becky steps off the porch and takes deep, savoring breaths. 

*Come on... come on..." Becky takes her hair down, slips her glasses into the opened buttons on her shirt, snugging the earpiece between her bra and chest.The storm breaks with a bright band of blue sky still visible in the east, a bright flash followed by a long roll of thunder. 

shhhhhhhhhhhAHHHHHHHHHH!

One minute she's dry and the next she's standing in a downpour so dense that she can't see the pit. Water. Blessed, blessed water coming down like someone upended a moon-sized bucket over the Badlands. The banners stand out from the poles, whipping in the wind as gutters and downspouts creak under the onslaught. Her hair and clothes are soaked, boots filling with water that runs down her shins and calves. It was too much to bear to put nylons on this morning when the temperature had already been 102F.

And the guys are still at full blast? How?

The ground is turning to mud as she walks to the bridge and peers in, then starts to laugh. You have to hand it to them, once they set on a course of action, they stick with it! The guys are sloshing through the mud, with more pouring in as the drains clear, the blue and red of the uniforms turning to a dingy beige-grey. As she watches, a Pyro and Heavy charge at each other with melee weapons raised - then stop, wipe down each other's upper arm to reveal the insignia. Both are RED.

"Izvinite."

"Ezzuzeme."

The Medics are lurching around the pit, wiping down insignia before healing, and one of the Demos just starts laughing. The whole thing is ridiculous. This place tends to the surreal and cartoonish at the best of times, but this-

"For the first time in the history of BLU and RED, this match is called on account of rain." Administrator sounds incredulous, but there it is. "Disengage and return to your forts."

"Guys! Hey!" The mayhem continues. They aren't listening. "Hey! Day off!"

Really. Man, whatever set them off must have been a lulu. Becky slides under the railing and drops herself onto the top of a pile of crates, then down into the pit itself where a mud covered Scout is lurching back to the melee.

"Miss Pauling!" At least she can tell accents apart. Becky pulls RED Scout to his feet. "You shouldn't be in the pit!"

"Administrator gave you guys the go home, Scout. Didn't you hear her?"

"Really?"

"Yeah. Man, you guys just cranked up."

"Uh. Yeah. Well those BLU-"

A geyser of mud erupts in front of them, shovel blade poised to behead. "Eat shovel, mag-! Ah oh er. Miss Pauling. Your class is not supposed to be in the pit." 

Class? "Soldier, the Administrator said to dismiss."

"I did not hear her. I was reconning in the mud." 

"I-"

"Die, you maggo-!" A fountain of mud to her left. "Um."

"Soldiers? The Administrator dismissed everyone for the day." She makes a blade of her hand and wipes down the upper arm to- Um. That's skin. "Uh. You're wearing tank shirts, right?"

"Negative, Miss Pauling!" He then volunteers too much information as cheerfully as only a Soldier can, "I am just as naked as the day on which I was born."

"Wearing clothing in the mud creates drag," says the other, placing the blade of his shovel in fig-leaf position. "A coating of all-American Vaseline and a commando can slip through the mud like shit through a goose!"

"You're freaking naked?! Both of you have been- oh my GOD!" Scout attempts to levitate out of the mud. "What the fu-"

"Who's naked and what are you yelling ab- oh my GOD!" BLU's Scout has identical hysterics in a Brooklyn accent. 

"Scouts? They're naked. It's not catching. Calm down." Honestly, since she took this job, she has seen a whole lot of naked men. It's ceased to shock her and lately she doesn't even look twice. Most of the time. "If you could catch naked, we'd all be in trouble."

"Especially since nobody wants to see your bony chicken legs, laughably insufficient genitalia, and unmuscular ass, maggot." 

"Screw you! Wait- which one are you?" BLU Scout asks.

The Soldiers might be crazy, but they're not stupid. The answer is identical mocking grins.

"Guys. Stow it and stand down." 

"Yes, Miss Pauling." "Yes, Miss Pauling." 

The Soldiers keep the shovel blades strategically positioned. 

"However," the one on the left continues, "Your class is not supposed to be in the pit during the match."

"Miss Pauling is a class?" RED Scout asks. 

"Of course she is, maggot."

"Moreover, there is only one Miss Pauling, jackass. She is a singular class." 

"I'm in the pit because you disregarded or didn't hear the Administrator dismissing the match."

"... who was winning?" RED Scout asked as she starts herding the four men toward the main area of the pit.

"You'll start off with the same scores tomorrow or whenever things dry out enough to fight." 

"American fighting men can fight in any weather!" 

"This is true! Neither rain nor snow nor-"

"That's the post office, ya idjit!"

"Guys." Four men pull their heads low between their shoulders. "Come on. Time to go clue the rest of the teams."

She marches out ahead of them, something of a feat in mud that is now past her ankles. From out in front, there's the benefit of not looking at mud-covered rear ends, too. The main area of the pit is now a wallow, with mudmonsters lurching around chaotically and laughing. Becky pulls in a deep breath and then uses her 'call them in for dinner voice' commonly used to summon her younger siblings.

"GUYS! CEASE!" They literally stop in place as she highsteps into the mud and immediately finds herself in knee deep. One of her boots gets left behind as she schleps across the field. "Administrator called the match because of the rain. Get out of the pit before it fills up with mud!"

Her other boot bogs down and she leaves it behind with a sigh, lurching and leaping over the the nearest mudmonster. A handswipe down the upper arm shows Sniper insignia in blue, and Becky just starts sorting them out from there and soothing the grumbling. 

"Look, if it's still raining tomorrow or the next day there's lots of things we can do - okay?" It takes some cajoling sometimes. "There's the tunnels, and if it's going to be a real monsoon we can always go up to one of the other locations."

"How often does it do this, Miss Pauling?" One of the Spies - RED by the accent - is picking himself out of the mud, as the rain continues to bucket down. 

"It can do this for weeks at a time." She's conscious of the looks that gets her as she sorts RED from BLU, the mercs holding still as she wipes off mud and recovers four pairs of lost glasses. "I've been here longer than you guys, my training was going on while they staffed the teams."

"Your final interview-" BLU's Sniper starts and then stops. 

"Nah. Nah. Prolly nothing like ours." RED Scout interrupts. "Right, Miss P?"

Becky thinks that there's probably no polite way to ask if they shot you in the head, too. They did. "Come on, guys. Let's go get cleaned up, then I'll order some pizzas." 

"Pizza. Yeah. That'll be good. Ain't had any since I left Boston-"

"Yeah. We can do a beer and chips run..."

"No, BLU. The drinking age in New Mexico is 21."

"The fuck?! Hey, Miss P - can you buy us some beer?"

Ooohboy. "Sorry guys, I'm a little short-"

"Hey, we buy and you fly!"

Becky sighs. "You're going to have to wait a quite while before I can legally buy beer. Hope you're not thirsty." 

There's a collective appalled silence.

"But I can order all the pizza I want." Becky gives BLU Sniper a push to get him moving and finds that she is now in mud knee deep. "Come on, go get cleaned up and everyone can pig out."

The guys start moving reluctantly and Becky highsteps after them, wondering why she couldn't take after the big, strapping German Paulings instead of the smaller French Lapines. In the scant five minutes it takes to get out of the pit, she's as muddy as they are. 

"So, uh, Miss Pauling. You're... um... about our age?" BLU Scout asks. "Because honestly, they stuck you with a shit detail if they put you in charge of us."

"I love my job!" She protests. "I'm nineteen. I'll be twenty in April." 

"Yeah? I was born in July. I hear that if two signs match, it's true love." RED Scout asks. "What's your sign, Miss Pauling?"

Sign? "Bridge Out."


End file.
